At a conference held at the London School of Economics and
Political Science (LSE) in London on 20-21 May 1967, Isaiah Berlin used the
term ‘false’ populism, defining it as “the employment of populist ideas for the
ends other than those which the populist desired. That is to say – Berlin
argues -, their employment by Bonapartists or McCarthyists, or the ‘Friends of
the Russian people,’ or Fascists and so on. This is simply the mobilisation of
certain popular sentiments – say hostility to capitalism or to foreigners or
Jews, or hatred of economic organisation or of the market society, or of
anything you like – for undemocratic ends”.[1]

In my view, Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, is one of those autocrats, whose populism is ‘false’ and only used for populist rhetoric, but its decisive characteristic is authoritarianism. What makes him distinct from non-populist autocrats is the democratic elections through which he came to power in 2010, even though when in government he has changed the electoral law to keep his power.

This was spectacularly proved on 30 March 2­020, when the Orbán government introduced its Enabling Act[2] similar to Hitler’s Ermächtigungsgesetz of 1933. The Act gives dictatorial powers under cover of declaring a state of emergency to fight COVID-19. The Act was needed, because on 11 March the government by its decree declared a ’state of danger’, a special state of emergency regulated by the Fundamental Law in order to get exceptional competences to combat the coronavirus. According to the Fundamental Law, the Parliament is required to authorize the extension beyond 15 days. But the Act violates Fidesz’s own constitution, the Fundamental Law of Hungary enacted in 2011 with the exclusive support of the governing party – and not only because the 15 days deadline had already expired when the law was enacted. Article 53 of the Fundamental Law mentions only natural disasters and industrial accidents, not pandemics. The latter cause of a state of danger is only covered by the Act 128 of 2011 concerning the management of natural disasters. In other words, there was no constitutional authorization either for the decree or for the Enabling Act.

The Act, enacted exclusively with the votes of the
governing majority, enables the government to take any measure by executive
decree for an indefinite period of time. These measures, which are not tailored
to fight the coronavirus, can include suspending or overriding any laws, or
simply departing from them, suspending by-elections and referenda as well as
the functioning of ordinary courts. The Constitutional Court, which could be
the only body to check the government, is allowed to continue to exercise its
review power, but it has been packed by loyal pro-government judges since 2013.
The Enabling Act inserted two new crimes into the Criminal Code, which will not
go away when the emergency is over. Anyone who „claims or spreads a distorted
truth in relation to the emergency in a way that is suitable for alarming or
agitating a large group of people” can be punished for a term of up to five
years in prison. Also, anyone who interferes with the operation of measures
that the government takes to fight the pandemic could also face a jail sentence
of up to five years. These clearly unconstitutional, disproportionate threats
to freedom of expression could silence what is left of a free media and
independent civil society organizations in Hungary. Besides the law,
governmental decrees enacted after 11 March also contain unconstitutional
provisions, the validity of which have now been extended by the Enabling Act.
One of those allowed for the army to deploy around 140 state owned and private
strategic factories. Neither the Fundamental Law nor the law on the management
of natural disasters gives power to the government to make extraordinary rules
concerning the army.

The blanket authorization of uncontrolled executive power
will last as long as the ’state of danger’ persists, which will be determined
by the government itself. There are legitimate worries about the end of the
current emergency power, because the special ’state of emergency caused by mass
migration’ introduced in 2015 is still in force even though there are now no refugees
in the country.

[2] See the translation of the draft law, which
was enacted by the Hungarian Parliament at its last session before the
emergency power entered into force without any change. The goverment rejected
all the amendment proposals submitted by opposition parties, including one which
aimed at imposing a 90 days time limit on governmental actions, and the
President of the Republic, a founder of Orbán’s Fidesz party, signed the bill
within two hours. https://hungarianspectrum.org/2020/03/21/translation-of-draft-law-on-protecting-against-the-coronavirus/

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